A bunch of nothing...

MSNBC ran an article in honor of mother's day describing what a stay-at-home mom is worth. They even included a link to a salary calculator to see what your actual pay should be in your area. Apparently here in the Springs I should be making $108,000 for watching PBS right now with Austin. I remember before I had kid(s) I always said that I could never be a stay-at-home mom, probably because I run on food, water and compliments and the chief complaint that I hear from my friends that have tried staying at home (none of which were successful) was that after every day of keeping everything is order it was hard to even get a thank you much less a pat on the back. I quite obviously have a very different type of situation going on since I get to stay at home with Austin and work, but it became painfully apparent the other day watching Austin figure something out for herself that if for some reason I needed to give up something in my life due to time constraints that work would be the first to go. While that would mean that we would in fact have to hunt our own food I just don't see another option until the girls are in school.

Not only do I refuse to celebrate a person's death but again I can't stand to see so much acceptable racism flying around after we "got" Osama bin Laden. I was listening to people talking about how we killed the Muslim or the jihad or worse yet...ones that I won't type on my blog. Labeling bin Laden a Muslim for any other reason than to describe what religion he believes in would be as much of a shame as to say the church that pickets soldiers funerals are Christians. They may believe that the work they are doing is in Christ's footsteps but I assure you that is only one part of their personality and thus only one of the descriptive words that can be used to describe them. If all Muslims were violent or believed what bin Laden did we would live in a much darker society since the Muslim religion is still the largest.

Two cases here in town lately have caused me to question some of our means in which to punish those that break the law. One case a mother left her two children in the bath tub while she went across the street to a store. The two year old got out of the bath tub and turned back on the hot water thus scalding and drowning his 8 month old brother. In the other case a mom and her aunt bound a two year old girl with tape and placed her in a cold shower for spilling her drink. She nearly drowned but didn't and is recovering in the hospital. So here's my issue. I believe the first mom is negligent and shouldn't be allowed to be around any one's children much less her own, but I do not believe that she is a danger to society. Whereas the second mom and her aunt tortured another human being, a helpless one at that. Of course with the way laws are written the first mom will end up having far greater punishment since the boy died and I completely agree that this poor little boy never has the chance to grow up and leave his childhood behind like the little girl in shower does, I just worry about the severity of punishment for negligent death vs. torture.

I found a website dedicated to what women's bodies look like after pregnancy that was truly inspirational. I know for myself that I have a lot of stretch marks not just on my stomach but my hips, thighs and just about anywhere else my skin could fit one in and they have been a source of embarrassment ever since they showed up. And even when I ran in the IronMan I still had a flabby midsection where the skin had been stretched to accommodate Austin's 8 pound body. I hated it and only found myself dreading what would be a worse hot mess after baby two. That is until I was reading through this website and found how many women look just like I did, some in shape some not, some all stretched to beat the band like me and some not...but all totally exposed and totally fine with it. It was a great feeling to read through their updates about how miraculous their bodies were in allowing a whole other (or multiple) person to grow inside them. Just in case any of you need an inspirational website today...http://theshapeofamother.com.

Cousins...our first friends.

Watching Curious George together...or "monkey" as Austin refers to it.


Playing with bubbles on a beautiful Colorado day.

A big sigh of relief...

We had an appointment with a doctor yesterday to see about giving birth naturally to a breech baby. He walked us through some of the scarier scenarios while I gritted my teeth, but all the while he was very nice and made me feel better about the upcoming decisions. Then to check the baby's position we went and had an ultrasound only to find out that she had flipped and was head down. :-) It must have happened the day before which I think I could feel. I was walking to the door to let the dogs in and had this sharp sudden pain in my lower abdomen, looking back at the feeling it was probably her head finally resting on the lower section of my stomach. I was so happy in the ultrasound room that I almost started to cry, which I mentioned to Joe and he reminded me that I cry for everything else I might as well cry when I'm happy too. ;-) I won't be sad to see the additional hormones go, they definitely make me more of a "crier" which I don't need any help with.

So now we start the hurry up and wait part - which I am extremely excited about. I am even super excited about the pain, and puking on myself and everything else that went along with it. Although I must say in the day and age when we can put a man on the moon it still baffles me that we can't narrow down a delivery date past a 5 week window. Being in the 38th week we are looking at sometime between this afternoon and next month...comforting to say the least. :-)

We picked up a new couch on Sunday, we had recliners in the living room which were great but didn't allow for much seating and it's tough to saw Austin in half so she can sit on both our laps. Austin has since turned the living room into her own jungle gym, which I can't blame her because I would have done the exact same thing when I was young.

This was our living room last night while I was busy cooking dinner. :-D

Our Easter...

Here are a couple of pictures from Easter at our place. We had everyone over for a Ham/Beef Tenderloin dinner and ate and drank with family...a perfect Sunday.

Aunt J sitting with Austin who is about three knuckles deep in the ranch dip.



Spike and Ike cracking up at something, probably that J said.



Dying eggs with Dad, her toungue is always out of her mouth when she is concentrating.



This one is actually from the Museum of Natural History. J and I are taking advantage of all the amazing things to see in Colorado now that Austin is old enough to have fun. Here is the little pea pod after she found a slide in the kids section.

A prayer for Mom's of daughters by Tina Fey

I was tagged in this on Facebook by an old high school friend and thought it was too cute not to share. “First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. May she be beautiful but not damaged, for it’s the damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty. When the crystal meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half and stick with beer. Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age. Lead her away from acting but not all the way to finance.Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, dammit. May she play the drums to the fiery rhythm of her own heart with the sinewy strength of her own arms, so she need not lie with drummers. Grant her a rough patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, for childhood is short – a tiger flower blooming Magenta for one day – and adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait. O Lord, break the internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed. And when she one day turns on me and calls me a bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that shit. I will not have it. And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a mental note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with your God eyes. Amen.”

Lying to myself

We found out a week and a half a go that baby #2 is breech and we go back in on Monday to see if she has turned on her own or if we have to look into other options. Of course in this scenario other options are more than likely a c-section. I have been trying to come to terms with the pending surgery but no matter how cheery I seem on the outside I haven't slept well since we heard. I blame our natural birth classes, we took 8 weeks of classes when I was pregnant with Austin that basically went into great detail as to how horrible c-sections are for baby and mom. Now to be presented with one due to unexplained reasons is hard to swallow. I have read every medical journal, blog, and news article I can get my hands on and still rest no easier. While the logical side of me completely agrees that if it is safest for baby then we just need to schedule it, the part that has done so much research is fighting the sane part of my brain. I have been going to the chiropractor to try and turn her and while I am completely bruised she is still sitting pretty darn happy...and sideways, which is the other bummer. She's not even feet down, but rather laying across my (what I can only imagine) too big of an abdomen sideways. I read yesterday about some rather unorthodox births where a baby can come out bottom first but the mom has to undergo A LOT of stitches to make that happen and of course if the baby's heartbeat drops for any reason you are rushed in for the scary emergency c-section anyways. I read a story about a baby who had a sack of fluid next to their spine and was breech, as it turns out if the baby had been born naturally the sack would have had so much pressure applied to it that the baby would have been instantly paralyzed but instead was born via c-section and underwent surgery just fine. I thought for sure that would make me feel better but alas it did not. So here I sit worried about things I cannot change which is breaking one of my cardinal rules, hoping beyond reason that all the medical journals are false and there won't be bonding issues, or breastfeeding issues, or onset asthma, increased illness and failure to thrive. Not to mention that I actually just laughed out loud thinking of me being able to take two full weeks off to heal. I have already promised to begin checking emails when I get home from the hospital oh yeah and that two year old little girl I have running around that I won't be able to pick up.

Two peas in a pod

So it was taken with a cell phone thus the grainy appearance, but these two are twins separated by 50 years.